Archive
Book Review: The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King (Series, #4.5)
Summary:
There’s a tale we have yet to hear about the ka-tet in the time between facing the man in the green castle and the wolves of the Calla. A time when the ka-tet hunkered down and learned a special billy-bumbler talent, an old tale of Gilead, and the first task Roland faced as a young gunslinger after the events at Mejis.
Review:
When I heard there was going to be a new Dark Tower book, I had basically three reactions. 1) Yay! 2) Shit he better not ruin them. 3) Guess I didn’t actually finish that series after all, did I? May have written the series review a bit too soon…..
But mainly my reaction was a skeptical excitement. I love the world of the Dark Tower and was ecstatic to be able to get more of it (yes, I know there are the young gunslinger comic books, but they feel slightly less the same to me since they are in a different format). However, I was also terrified because well we’ve all been in an instance where we mess with something that was good to the point where it’s not good anymore, right? I was worried King was going to do that to the Dark Tower. I am so so so happy to be able to say that worry was unfounded.
This book goes to show just how clearly the entire world of the Dark Tower series exists in King’s mind. The format is a story within a story within a story. The ka-tet have to hunker down to wait out a storm, so Roland starts to tell them a story from when he was a young gunslinger. Within that story, the young Roland tells someone else an old story of Gilead. The Gilead story wraps up, then the young gunslinger, then the ka-tet. A writer must know his world very well to be able to handle such a structure smoothly without confusing his reader, and King does just that. There was no confusion and each story felt fully told. Or as fully told as anything is in the world of the Dark Tower.
I’ve said before that every book in the series basically is a different genre, which is part of what makes it so fun. So what genre is this one? I’d say it’s fairy tales. Once upon a times. And fairy tales generally have a lesson to be learned within them, so what is it in these three? Well, they vary, but I would say overall it’s about leaving aside childish things and childish ways to become an adult. (And, I might add, that happens much much earlier in the Dark Tower than it does in our particular world).
I will say, although I certainly had the impression that this book was going to be about Jake and Oy, it really isn’t. It isn’t much about the ka-tet at all. It’s about Roland and the role of billy-bumblers in the world. Although, personally I wanted more billy-bumblers, but I *always* want more billy-bumblers, because they are definitely my favorite fantastical creature. I’m still holding out hope that King will write something sometime entirely about Oy or billy-bumblers. But this book is not it.
That said, I was oddly not disappointed to see far less of the ka-tet than I was expecting, because the two stories within the frame of the ka-tet are so strongly told. They are just….wow. Terrifying, horrifying, unpredictable, and hilarious simultaneously.
That’s the thing that makes any Dark Tower book fun. It contains all of those things.
Lines can go from laugh out loud humor (with a touch of truth):
Turn yer ears from their promises and yer eyes from their titties. (page 43)
To the starkly sad truth:
Those were good years, but as we know—from stories and from life—the good years never last long. (page 110)
To the simply universal:
“What if I fail?” Tim cried.
Maerlyn laughed. “Sooner or later, we all do.” (page 255)
*shrugs* I admit I’m a bit of a fan girl of the series, but even a fan girl can be sorely disappointed, and I was really and truly not disappointed at all. I laughed, I nodded, I wondered, I quaked, I wished for an illustration sometime somewhere of billy-bumblers dancing in a clearing in the moonlight. Although, speaking of illustrations, how gorgeous is the US kindle cover?! So fucking gorgeous, that’s how.
Back to the point, I was not disappointed at all. I was ultimately elated and wishing for more. And other fans will be too.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Books in Series:
I’m listing all of the books so you can easily see where The Wind Through the Keyhole
The Gunslinger
The Drawing of the Three
The Waste Lands
Wizard and Glass
The Wind Through the Keyhole
Wolves of the Calla
Song of Susannah
The Dark Tower
Series Review (written before we knew there would be more)
Book Review: The Walking Dead Volume 15 by Robert Kirkman (Series, #8) (Graphic Novel)
Summary:
Everyone’s world was rocked when the zombies got through the community’s fence. Will they respond by banding together or falling apart?
Review:
Ok, before I review, the numberings need a bit of explanation. Comic books are issued very similarly to academic journals. So there are skinny issues that come out every few weeks (generally). A few of these bound together make a volume. A bunch of these bound together make a book (what we call in academia a “bound journal.”) I *was* reading the books of The Walking Dead but then I caught up to the author. I decided I didn’t want to buy issues, because they’re flimsy and you read through them very quickly, so I’m now reading the volumes. I hope that makes some semblance of sense. This will probably be the case throughout the rest of the series, because you have to wait a long time for the books, and I just am too impatient for that. My reviews will then be much shorter, because a book contains a few volumes, and I am now reviewing one volume at a time. Moving right along to the review!
This volume is basically cleaning up the mess from the action of the previous one and prepping for the action of the next one. Classic in-between chapter. What this volume really reminded me of is the infamous “Live together or die alone” speech by Jack in Lost. In fact, this volume sees Rick basically trying to turn into Jack and failing miserably. Long-time readers know I’ve never liked the guy, so personally I got a lot of schadenfreude out of seeing him be so pathetic in this volume.
That said, the survivors are definitely going for a new strategy, which will lend itself well to future fresh storylines, which any long-running series needs.
Fans of the sex will be quite happy with the developments in that area. Drama! Intrigue! Changes of partners!
Overall, it’s an enjoyable entry, if not mind-blowing, that perfectly sets things up for the next volume. Fans won’t be disappointed!
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Newbury Comics
Previous Books in Series:
The Walking Dead, Book One
The Walking Dead, Book Two
The Walking Dead, Book Three
The Walking Dead, Book Four
The Walking Dead, Book Five
The Walking Dead, Book Six
The Walking Dead, Book Seven
Mini Movie Reviews #1
I feel like I generally don’t have quite as much to say about movies as I do about books. Perhaps that’s because they only take an hour or two of my time, whereas books you live with for several hours, even days or weeks. In any case, although I really don’t watch much tv (and when I do, it tends to be nonfiction like cooking shows), I do periodically watch movies. Some of them popular, some of them older or documentaries you might not know about. After having seen mini reviews on other folks’ pages, I decided this format would be ideal for my movie reviews. A movie will periodically get a fully fleshed-out review if I have a lot to say about it.
So here we go, in the order in which I watched them.
The Shunning
USA
2011
Not Rated
Contemporary Drama
4 out of 5 stars
I read the original bonnet books back when I was in middle school, which started with The Shunning. I was happy to see it pop up on my Netflix. (I believe it was a made for tv movie, possibly for the Hallmark channel?) This isn’t your typical bonnet romance. Katie Lapp is struggling with the idea of her marriage to a man she doesn’t love after the death of her first love. She also likes playing guitar and singing, which is frowned upon in the Amish community. When she learns that she is adopted, her whole world is rocked. It’s a great film both to see Amish life and to consider issues of identity and adoption. I can think of quite a few of my friends and followers who would enjoy it
Unspeakable Acts
USA
1990
Not Rated
Docudrama
3 out of 5 stars
It’s odd, I generally don’t go for courtroom drama books, but the movies sometimes work for me. This one from 1990 is about the daycare child abuse scare that happened in the 1980s and looks at the groundbreaking case that made certain aspects of children testifying easier in court. One fun thing, one of the mothers is Bebe Neuwirth (Lilith from Frasier), and it was pretty….odd seeing her in a loving mother role. This docudrama addresses the controversial methods of questioning toddlers about situations at daycares. The movie falls solidly on the pro-questioning side. I enjoyed it. It was a bit slow-moving and sometimes the acting was a bit over-the-top, but it does a good job encouraging parents to be communicative with each other and to actually bother to ask their kids questions like they are real people (which indeed they are). Some viewers might be disturbed by the graphic descriptions of child abuse.
Creature From the Black Lagoon
USA
1954
Not Rated
Horror
4 out of 5 stars
I’ve been working my way through the 100 Horror Movies to See Before You Die, starting with the ones available on Netflix. This one is about a group of scientists who think they’ve discovered an artifact of the missing link in human evolution deep in the Amazon. They get there and of course discover that the missing link is actually a living creature. Let me just say upfront, yes it is abundantly obvious that this is one of those movies about white guys being scared of non-white guys stealing their women. Bare that in mind when watching this, and you will come away with a totally different viewing than those who don’t. It’s easy to see why it became a classic. The underwater shots are absolutely incredible. There are in particular these scenes wherein the woman is swimming in a gorgeous pure white swimsuit (I know, I know), and the creature is swimming underneath her in tandem. How they pulled that off in the 1950s, I don’t know. It is a highly watchable film and a great way to start a discussion of the racism in the 1950s. Perhaps even to try to convince those who would say otherwise that the good old days weren’t really so good. Side-note: there is a great scene where the woman scientist and the dude she’s dating are asked when they are gonna get married. It’s been a while. Only to find out they’ve been dating 6 months. o_O
Reel Injun
USA
2009
Not Rated
Documentary
5 out of 5 stars
This documentary looks at the stereotypes and use of Native Americans in American cinema as a lens for considering Native identity and the American Indian Movement (AIM, the name for the Native American civil rights movement). The documentary eloquently moves decade by decade, presenting clips and interviewing actors, directors, and AIM activists. It completely blew my mind. For instance, I didn’t know that during the silent movie era there was a strong group of Native filmmakers who made their own, powerful movies. It was when the talkies came that the cowboy and Indian trope came about and also when every Native everywhere was re-written as a Plains Indian. For ease. Then in the 1970s and 1980s after the civil rights era, we started to get the ass-kicking Natives as a reflection of the anger in the movement. It’s impossible to come even close to telling you all everything I learned or how powerful the movie was for me. I will say, though, that I found the part about how Marlon Brando turned down his Oscar due to the treatment of Natives in cinema by sending Sacheen Littlefeather up in full Apache clothing to turn it down for him completely shocking. I had no idea that such a movement exists in Hollywood, but it does, as is also evidenced by Clint Eastwood’s involvement in this documentary. It’s encouraging to hear that not everyone in Hollywood sits by while this shit goes down. In any case, a powerful documentary and a great starting point for getting your feet wet in the Native American civil rights movement.
The Invisible Man
USA
1933
Not Rated
Horror
2 out of 5 stars
Another entry in the 100 Horror Movies to See Before You Die. A scientist manages to make himself invisible but doesn’t have an antidote ready. Also he goes crazy. Allow me to say, yes I realize this is super-old and they still managed to do the slowly revealing the invisible dude scenes, which is an amazing achievement in cinema. Watch clips of those parts on youtube. The storyline itself is super boring and not well structured, and the science is rather shoddily done. It was good for a few laughs. For the first 55 minutes. The rest was suffering and wanting to rip my hair out. I think one of my live tweets from watching it sums it up best, “The best part of this movie is the knowledge that this dude is running around nekkid.” Because his clothes are visible, you see.
That’s about a month’s worth of movies. Stay tuned for more quick thoughts next month!
Source: Unless otherwise noted, all movies watched via Netflix.
Book Review: The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga (Series, #1)
Summary:
The first in a prequel trilogy that relates how the baddest villain of The Walking Dead’s zombie apocalypse came to be–not just how he came to rule Woodbury, but how he became an evil sociopath.
Review:
Wow. Just wow. If I could be a good book blogger and just say that I would, but I can’t so I suppose I must attempt to put my love for this book into words.
First of all, it’s important to know that this is sort of a prequel to The Walking Dead graphic novels. It’s the origin story of The Governor (aka one of the most evil comic book villains ever). Only instead of sticking to his graphic novel format, Kirkman, with the assistance of Bonansinga, went with the written word. Now, I was offered this book as an audiobook, and I have to say this really affected my reading of it. The reader, Fred Berman, does an absolutely amazing job. He has a natural standard American accent, but seamlessly slips into a Southern drawl when the characters speak. Beyond this though he is able to bring the anguish and tensity to the survival scenes that is necessary without seeming melodramatic. It reminded me of being read to by my own father when I was a little girl. I found myself choosing to curl up with the audiobook over many other activities. So. I’m not sure if the experience is the same reading it yourself. I do know that listening to the audiobook is a remarkable experience.
Now, this is a zombie apocalypse horror novel about an evil man. It gets uncomfortable. Kirkman and Bonansinga bring us inside the minds of men warped by situations and psychiatric problems alike. It’s not pretty. It makes you squirm. But it’s supposed to. Some reviewers have accused this book of being misogynistic because bad things seem to happen an awful lot to the female characters. I have a couple of things to say about that. First of all, hello, do you live in this world? Because women have to survive a lot of bad shit. Second, this is an apocalypse. Think of it as a war zone. Do women get molested, raped, murdered, treated as less strong and unequal? Absolutely. The book isn’t misogynistic. It’s realistic about how a south torn apart by zombies would treat women. The way to determine if a book in this sort of situation is misogynistic is to look at how the author treats the women. Does he present them as hysterical, over-reacting? Do they refuse to stand up for themselves? I can unequivocally say that although horrible things happen to the women in this book, they fight for themselves. It is therefore not misogynistic, but realistic.
Now one thing that probably a lot of people wonder is is the story predictable? We already know who The Governor is and that he keeps his zombie daughter as a pet. That would seem to remove the ability for the authors to surprise us at all. I am happy to say that in spite of knowing the end result, this story kept me on the edge of my seat. Some readers didn’t like all of the surprises and twists. Personally, I feel that they brought the novel up a notch in both talent and enjoyability.
Overall, this is a wonderful addition to The Walking Dead canon. Fans of the graphic novel series will not be disappointed, although fans of the tv show seem to be taken aback by it. All I can say is that the books don’t pull any punches and are not for the squeamish. If you don’t want to be challenged, stick to tv. Everyone else should scoop this up as soon as possible.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review and a giveaway
Book Review: Devil Tree by Steve Vernon
Summary:
In a valley near a river in the wood near Indian territory lies a tree. A tree that sends out its roots throughout the valley and demands blood. It is in this valley that the godsman Lucas and his wife Tamsen find themselves wrecked and at the mercy of not just the man Jonah Duvall and his Indian bride Jezebel, but also at the mercy of the tree.
Review:
I decided to dip my toe into magical realism via a genre I love–horror. It turns out it’s not a genre that works for me, although Vernon does it well.
Magical realism is a style in which magic is blended into the real world and characters view it as a natural, normal part of the world. It is more realistic than fantasy but less realistic than traditional horror, for instance. Personally, I could not get into an evil tree that wouldn’t let the inhabitants leave the valley. I think, perhaps, I would have if the characters themselves had been more modern, but they have an antiquated magical feel to them as well.
The books’ main themes are sexual disloyalty and cannibalism. The story seems to be saying that these negative qualities are possible in all humans, but the tree draws them out. All I can say is that although these themes are ones that interest me, they just didn’t do it for me in this story. I reiterate that I think the issue is simply that magical realism is not my style.
The tale is not badly told, although the strongest portions of the story are the flashbacks to Tamsen’s and Lucas’s lost prior loves. Those tales are unique and beautiful, and I can’t help but wonder what made the author choose to tell them as flashbacks instead of as the central piece.
It is difficult to write a review of this book, for although I recognize that it is well-written, it is simply not for me. Some combination of the style and the order in which things are told just didn’t work for me, although there is nothing easily pin-pointed as being wrong with it.
Overall, this is a well-written story that will appeal to fans of both the grotesque and magical realism. You must have a tough stomach to be able to handle this tale, but also an ability to immerse yourself in a world of magic just below the surface.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: Gargoyles by Alan Nayes (Series, #1)
Summary:
Amoreena is determined to be a doctor and help people. She’s a hard-working, scholarship student on the pre-med track in her third year of college. Unfortunately, her single mother just got diagnosed with metastatic cancer and lost her health insurance. With no time for a job and no money for the bills, Amoreena is grateful when she is approached by a surrogacy clinic to be a surrogate for $50,000 with payments upon successful insemination and each trimester. But after she’s successfully inseminated, Amoreena becomes increasingly concerned that something is not quite right with her baby.
Review:
This book is best summed up as the scientific Rosemary’s Baby, which also means it kicks serious ass. Even people who find pregnancy to be a miracle (people who I completely do not understand) are creeped out by a pregnancy gone awry. This basic storyline then is ideal for a modern update aka switch out the demons and Satanism for science.
Nayes successfully sets up a realistic and compelling reason behind Amoreena’s surrogate motherhood, which is key to the whole story. Readers need to be able to believe that this intelligent woman made a not so intelligent choice with good reason. A loving relative dying with no health insurance is something so relatable to most Americans that it gives the whole story a more realistic tone than it might otherwise have. Also, the amount of stress Amoreena is under gives a plausible other reason for her difficult pregnancy to add to the mystery.
The secondary characters are well-rounded and believable. Nayes handles the largely Hispanic array of them with deft and avoidance of stereotyping. There is no othering of the company or those in control of it. The answers to the problems are not so black and white as a lot of international intrigue tends to make it, and I appreciated that. The gray areas of science and scientific research are clearly depicted while also accurately showing the full range of humanity present in Mexico and Guatemala.
So with all these positives, why am I not totally in love with it? The ending and big reveal are a bit anti-climactic. The suspense is built up so well that the relatively average ending couldn’t quite live up to it. I think the choice to make the main character sick during the climax was not a wise one. The book does redeem itself though with the somewhat cliffhanger ending that will lead into the next book in the series, and I am excited for it to come out.
Overall this horror suspense is a great addition to the genre of evil pregnancies. I recommend it and am looking forward to the next entry in the series.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Kindle copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
Book Review: The Walking Dead, Book 2 by Robert Kirkman (Series, #2) (Graphic Novel)
Summary:
The rag-tag group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse stumble upon a prison with two circles of fences just in time. With the warm weather more zombies are active now that they’re no longer frozen. Of course they also discover locked in the cafeteria three surviving inmates. Attempts to make the odd mix of original survivors, inmates, and the farmers into one group might be a task too huge to overcome. Especially when you add in a mysterious woman who arrives with two pet zombies she leads by chains.
Review:
Now that Kirkman has the post-apocalyptic zombie world firmly established, he is more free to move his characters around within it, seeing how different personalities and mores react to an entirely reordered society. This leads to some interesting storylines, such as the May/December romance, suicide pacts, and the idea of a fresh start for the living inmates. It does, however, also lead to some….overly dramatic speeches, let’s say. One in particular reminded me of the infamous “Live together, die alone” speech from Lost, only this one goes, “You kill; you die!” I had to stop reading for a minute to giggle. The close-up of the sheriff’s overly dramatic face had me in stitches, and I”m pretty sure that wasn’t the intended reaction, lol.
That said, though, all of the drama and death and zombies is exactly what one is looking for in a zombie graphic novel. If anything gives a writer an excuse to be overly dramatic, it’s a rag-tag bunch of survivors of the zombie apocalypse. Death and chaos are what we’re looking for here, while also addressing survival issues like farming and people having nervous break-downs. There’s also a creative zombie lore twist that I won’t spoil for you, but that is highly enjoyable.
Overall, Kirkman finds more stable footing in this second entry in the series. It’s chaotic, high-speed disasters, violence, and sex. If that’s what you look for in your graphic novels, I highly recommend this one.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Public Library
Previous Books in Series:
The Walking Dead, Book 1
Book Review: The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey (series, #1)
Summary:
A New England town’s oldest resident dies leaving no known surviving family. His journals end up at the university where a professor loans them to a writer friend. In the first three folios, we learn of young Will Henry whose father and mother died in a terrible house fire leaving him to the care of his father’s employer–Warthrop. Warthrop is a monstrumologist. He studies monsters, and people arrive in the middle of the night for his help. One night a grave robber arrives with the body of a young girl wrapped in the horrifying embrace of an anthropophagus–a creature with no head and a mouth full of shark-like teeth in the middle of his chest. Will Henry, as the assistant apprentice monstrumologist, soon finds himself sucked into the secret horror found in his hometown.
Review:
This book was creating a lot of buzz last year, and I acquired it through the Book Blogger Holiday Swap. Clearly it took me almost a year to read it, and I’m glad I saved it up for Halloween. The chills and thrills were just right for this spooky month. I must admit, I was skeptical at first that it would live up to the hype–particularly the cover blurb praising it as Mary Shelley meets Stephen King. I am pleased to say, however, that it more than lived up to this apt comparison.
This is a combination of classic New England style horror (complete with a small town, small town values, a creepy insane asylum, cemeteries, etc…) with 19th century style lyricism present in the language.
How oft do they rescue or ruin us, through whimsy or design or a combination of both, the adults to whom we entrust our care! (page 251)
Seeing language like this in a new book being marketed as YA (a point I disagree with, but anyway) gave me chills. It was a pleasure to read for the language alone. Yancey, in particular, is quite talented at alliteration. The story itself, though, kept me guessing and was genuinely scary.
The anthropophagi are truly distressing. They are essentially land sharks who live underground and can pop up, like Mushu says in Mulan, LIKE DAISIES. You’re trotting along and all of a sudden, BAM, there’s a monster popping out of the graveyard dirt for you. Only unlike zombies there’s nothing humanoid about them, and they’re fast. The truly perfect monstrosity. It doesn’t hurt that Yancey connects them to myths and legends of the past, even quoting Shakespeare!
The characters are all well-rounded and memorable. From the way everyone calls Will Henry by only his full name to the terrified and perplexed constable to the eccentric Warthrop to the truly delightfully darkly witty Englishman who is brought in to help with the problem (“His teeth were astonishingly bright and straight for an Englishman’s. (page 266)”), everyone is lifelike. In fact I think they will probably live on in my mind forever; that is how clearly and forcefully they are drawn.
More than a delicious fright, beautiful language, and lifelike characters though, the narrator, being an older man looking back on his youth, brings to light several serious real-life questions that there aren’t any easy answers to, but it is lovely to read about within literature. You’ll be reading along, enjoying the terror and horror and wit of the main story, then stumble upon a passage like this:
Perhaps that is our doom, our human curse, to never really know one another. We erect edifices in our minds about the flimsy framework of word and deed, mere totems of the true person, who, like the gods to whom the temples were built, remains hidden. We understand our own construct; we know our own theory; we loved our own fabrication. Still…does the artifice of our affection make our love any less real? (page 362)
And you stop, and you close the book, and you think about it, and maybe you cry a little bit, then you get back into it to see how Will Henry does against the monsters, but that thought, that beauty, that fact that someone else on the planet has wondered the same thing as you (only put it quite a bit better) sticks with you afterward. And that is what takes good writing and characterization into the land of exquisite storytelling.
Frankly, I think everyone should read this book.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Gift
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Book Review: Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge
Summary:
Every year the people of the town lock their boys aged sixteen to nineteen in their bedrooms for five days without food then let them loose on the night of Halloween for the Run. The October Boy, a living, breathing scarecrow stuffed with candy and topped by a jack-o-lantern head, will try to make it to the church by midnight. Whatever teenage boy stops him is the winner and is allowed past the Line to escape from town. Pete is determined to win this year, but not everything about the Run is as it at first appears.
Review:
This short book reads like a campfire story. I kept finding myself wishing I was huddled up around a campfire reading it out loud to my friends. The narration style is decidedly written that style. The style of a whispered urban legend or a campfire ghost story.
I don’t know what possessed Partridge to name this book Dark Harvest, when while I was reading it I definitely thought of it as The October Boy. Plus, Dark Harvest is a common name whereas The October Boy is not. The title is definitely one of the weakest points of the book.
Basically this story is an allegory for every teenager who ever felt trapped in a small town.
You remember how it feels, don’t you? All that desire scorching you straight through. Feeling like you’re penned up in a small-town cage, jailed by cornstalk bars. Knowing, just knowing, that you’ll be stuck in that quiet little town forever if you don’t take a chance. (page 41)
That desire and drive as a teenager to get the heck out of dodge is palpable in the book. Similarly, the disillusionment as you realize as a teenager that adults are not perfect and do not know it all and maybe even lied to you. It’s a nice allegory for both of those emotions, but it is not a perfect one.
I felt too many questions were left unanswered at the end of the book. Perhaps that wouldn’t bother some readers, but it bothered me. There’s this huge mystery of The October Boy, but while we get some answers, we are left with some questions hanging. I was hoping for more from this book.
Overall, this is a fun, quick horror story told in an intimate, urban legend style. Due to its themes, it will work best for teenagers, but adults who vividly remember those emotions will probably enjoy it as well.
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Better World Books
Buy It
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Book Review: Symphony of Blood by Adam Pepper
Summary:
Hank Mondale wanted to be a cop but his gambling, alcohol, and drug addictions ruined his record. Instead, he is now a private detective barely scraping by, so when a wealthy and famous man named Blake hires him to figure out where the monster pursuing his daughter is hiding out, he takes the case in spite of the odd sound of it. Particularly since Blake and his daughter insist that this is a literal, shape-changing, lizard-like monster after her.
Review:
This is a book that suffers from bad structure, a plethora of unlikable characters, and a serious lack of editing.
I don’t need to go into too much detail about the lack of editing. Suffice to say it’s a combination of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. For instance, Jaeger is spelled “Yager” at one point (when being spoken about by an alcoholic character, no less). Also, although most of the book is told in past tense, periodically present tense shows up. Similarly, other errors show up that simply jar the reader, such as calling a character “rippled,” when the author meant “ripped.”
These are all editing problems, though, so I always try to look beyond them to see if they were fixed, would the story be a quality one? Alas, the case in this instance is simply no. The first half of the book is told entirely from the detective’s point of view, only to abruptly switch and have the next 25% or so back-track and tell what occurred from the monster’s perspective. Then the last bit of the book reverts back to the detective’s perspective. This gives the book an incredibly odd structure and simultaneously removes most of the mystery and suspense. Where before the creature was an enigma, we now understand it intimately. Similarly, whereas the section told from the creature’s point of view could be an interesting story in its own right, it is instead smushed between two ho-hum detective sections. Either choose to be investigating the monster or be the monster or alternate more quickly between the two to maintain some mystery. This structure simply feels like two different books willy-nilly slammed together.
There’s also the problem of the characters. The only sympathetic one is the monster, which would work if the story was told entirely from the monster’s perspective, yet it is not. Plus the monster itself just doesn’t make much sense. It’s hard to picture or imagine how it operates. It seems the author used the excuse of it being a monster to let it bend all rules whenever it was convenient to the storyline. Beyond the monster, the detective, his friends, Blake, and the daughter are all completely unsympathetic. They are the kind of people you’d move away from on the subway or roll your eyes at behind their backs. Readers, particularly in a mystery, need at least one character they can relate to.
All that said, Pepper does have some writing abilities. He clearly has a creative mind and is capable of telling a story one can follow. This would be a good draft, but not a final published work. He needs to decide if he wants to tell the monster’s story or the detective’s, then rewrite entirely from that point of view and also invest in an editor. If these steps are followed, Pepper could have a solid book here. As it stands now, though, I can’t in good faith recommend it to anyone, even staunch horror fans.
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Copy from the author in exchange for my honest review
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Opinions of a Wolf 